


Sail

by Fossarian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Homeless, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 07:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11352531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fossarian/pseuds/Fossarian
Summary: Dean's hunting on his own and meets someone he doesn't expect.





	Sail

It’s Detroit and there’s not much to say about it other than he doesn’t want to be here. Too many real-world, manmade problems that Dean can’t fix. He’s as likely to get killed in a gas station for shooting his mouth off to the wrong thug who thinks he’s a gangster as he is the thing he’s hunting. As yet undetermined. 

“What did it look like?” Dean’s been at this for four hours now and it’s cold and he’s hungry and this kid is the only light in the dark. 

Says his name is Castiel. Sounds foreign but he’s got a Midwestern slant to his voice that’s as unmistakable as apple pie and Dean really wishes there was a diner around here that served anything resembling Mom’s cooking right about now. Castiel shrugs. 

“Don’t remember,” he says. 

Dean narrows his eyes. “Well, will ten bucks help your memory?” 

“Worth a shot,” Castiel says and his eyes slide down Dean’s jeans front. Before Dean can figure out what that look means or decide on a suitable level of outrage, Castiel says, “Got a light?” 

“Sure,” Dean says, feeling somewhat off-kilter. His fingers are numb as he fumbles for the light in his pocket, but he’s glad of it; it hides the shaky surge of adrenaline he felt when Castiel said “Yeah, it had black eyes” like he got asked about demons every day of his life. 

Castiel leans off the wall with a Marlboro cigarette hanging out of his mouth and lets Dean flick the Zippo open and light it. Dean places the lighter back in his pocket and watches the kid smoke for a while. He’s been talking to him for twenty minutes and he’s beginning to think he’s getting the runaround. Hard to tell. Castiel answers every fifth question or so and doesn’t seem overly concerned that Dean’s behavior isn’t quite in keeping with the orthodoxy of a cop. He’s pleasant enough and one of the few sober people Dean’s spoken with in days, though. So Dean keeps standing there. 

He finds out Castiel is seventeen and not originally from Detroit. When Dean asks where he’s from Castiel pretends he doesn’t hear and Dean moves on. He’s used to being patient when it comes to getting information from people and Dean guesses that little tidbit isn’t important, anyway. Nor, for that matter, is knowing that Castiel hasn’t eaten in three days and has been homeless for as many. 

“Go to one of the shelters,” Dean says. “It’s too cold to be out here.” 

“They don’t like to let guys in,” Castiel says with a sort of tolerant patronization of Dean’s ignorance. “If you’re little it’s okay, sometimes.” Castiel flicks the cigarette to the cement sidewalk. “You always get something stolen there.” 

“I see,” Dean says and has a sudden gratitude for his father’s insistence on dragging them all over the country putting their lives in danger hunting monsters instead of dumping him and his brother in the system. 

When Castiel smiles there is no emotion in his eyes at all. “Okay,” he says, as if Dean is a child. 

“Did you see anything else?” Dean says, trying to steer this conversation back to more familiar territory. 

“Like what?” 

“Like -” Dean waves his hand in the air impatiently, trying to pantomime what he imagines a specter of hell looks like. “I dunno, did it have teeth?” 

“Yes,” Castiel says, staring at him as if he’s just decided Dean is nuts and possibly armed. _(Both true)._ “It looked like you and me. They always do.” 

Dean’s heart nearly skips a beat. “You’ve seen more than one?” 

Castiel puts his hands in his pockets and starts sliding away from Dean along the wall. “I dunno, maybe,” he says. His eyes flick past Dean’s head and down the street. “I have to go. You’re scaring everyone away.” 

“Wait!” Dean steps in front of him and holds his ungloved hands out, placating. The wind whipping around them is like ice needles on his skin but he keeps his hands out. “Wait. What if - what if I make it worth your while?” 

“How?” Castiel says. 

“Let’s get out of the cold and we’ll talk more,” Dean says. “I’ll buy you food and whatever else you want,” he adds, preparing for the worst. “Just let me ask you some more questions first.” 

Castiel gives him a faintly exasperated look. He seems older than his seventeen years and Dean supposes he is. If the life he is living now is better than the one he left, there’s not much Castiel hasn’t experienced. But he looks at Dean like he’s never quite met someone like him before. 

Castiel considers him a moment longer and then his eyes sweep the ground as if in submission to Dean’s will. He’s a good-looking kid. Dean’s not terribly well-versed in the venal activities of Detroit’s criminal element, but his imagination supplies him with enough images to bring a heat to his cheeks that leaves him momentarily impervious to the cold. Sometimes, Dean meets people, strangers, that have an indefinable quality about them, never expected and rarely forgotten. But they stick in his mind like splinters and Dean remembers the oddest details about them. 

Like the faux-furred ruff of Castiel’s coat collar and how it tickles the side of his cheek as he tips his head down. Or how a line forms between his brow as he frowns in deep thought, his Marlboro pack hitting the side of his palm as he slides another stick out, old man gestures in a body young and already beaten up. The laces of his boots are unlaced and tucked behind the flaps; he must not feel the need to run much. Dean brings his lighter out and when Castiel leans forward with the cigarette, he knows he’s won. 

“Okay,” Castiel says in a breath of smoke. “If you’re buying.” He leaves it at that, as if all his decisions are based on that simple contingency. 

“Great,” Dean says calmly. He has learned not to look too thrilled about his own success. People like to feel like they are in control at all times, especially when they’re not. 

Castiel gives him another cold smile, his eyes a little too knowing. “Does anyone say no to you?” he says. 

His tone is light and slightly flirtatious and Dean has been hit on many times in his life by men as well as women, but it’s still strange to be on the receiving end of it under these conditions. It’s all so desperate and hungry and Dean knows intellectually that Castiel has no interest in him at all and possibly thinks he’s a serial killer, that this sordid nuance is, after all, how Dean came across the kid in the first place. That he happened to have the answers Dean has been looking for was merely good fortune on Dean’s - the kid has no idea how this will turn out for him. Dean knows all of these things but it’s hard to remember them when Castiel does such a good job of acting like Dean is just his type of guy. 

Dean shrugs noncommittally to his question, fearing anything more introspective would lead to an intimacy that guarantees Dean ends up looking like a fool. Castiel is so young. He’s two years younger than Sam. If this were Sam… But he can’t think of that. This wouldn’t happen to him. He’d be too… 

_What?_ Dean’s conscience jibes. _He’d be too what - smart, fast, strong? Like that’s kept either of you from being hungry and scared before._ So he has to think of it like that. Like Castiel is like his brother. And that means this could have been Sam. 

__

__

Dean walks him down to where his Impala is parked a few yards away - no way is he leaving his car in this neighborhood unsupervised - and unlocks the door for Castiel. Dean doesn’t miss how Castiel’s eyes flicker to the back seat before he climbs in, or the charmingly coltish way his limbs fold into the carseat and then sprawl back out. One second he’s skittish and ready to bolt, the next he’s making himself at home in Dean’s car and fiddling with the radio. 

Dean slaps him lightly on the hand. “Don’t you know that’s rude? You should ask first.” 

“Sorry,” Castiel says, surprising Dean with his sincerity. “It’s just - I don’t like the static. Can you turn it to something else?” 

Detroit’s a veritable wasteland and Dean has noticed that there are odd pockets where music stations fade out and in some cases die altogether. He’d given up trying to correct the issue and hadn’t realized until Castiel pointed it out that his radio is blaring white noise. As Castiel looks physically troubled by the sound, Dean’s happy to oblige this small request. Maybe the kid’s got a case of autism or something. Would explain some things. 

“Sure, no problem,” Dean says, turning the knob until he gets a station with audible voices. It’s a news station, would have been better if it were music, but Dean figures he might as well catch up on the local intel - that is, until he realizes it’s a news station from Sacramento, California. 

“Do sounds like that bother you a lot?” Dean asks politely. 

“No,” Castiel says, looking out the window. “Just that. It’s like nails raking through my brain. I can’t hear myself think.” 

It’s an odd way to describe a mildly irritating noise, but whatever. Dean’s got his own hangups so who is he to criticize. 

“So,” Dean says, “what do you want to eat?” 

“Just whatever,” Castiel says, and without asking he rolls down the window and lights another cigarette. Dean cranks on the heat in silent admonition of this faux pas. “What did you want to ask me about the black-eyed men?” Castiel says. 

_How about how you’re not freaked out, for a start,_ Dean thinks. “You say they look like us,” Dean says, “how do you know they’re not, then?” 

“What?” Castiel says. 

Dean rephrases. Sometimes he has to remember that not everyone is privy to the same information that he is. Sam is better at cozying up to the civilians. “I mean, how do you know that what you’re seeing is what I’m asking about? How do you know it’s not -” 

“In my head?” Castiel supplies. He doesn’t look insulted by the question, which goes some way in mollifying Dean’s doubts about Castiel’s stability as a witness. He’s been doing this enough by now that he can usually tell the real, shellshocked thing from the crazies, but Castiel is so _blase _about it all. It’s disarming.__

“I guess I don’t,” Castiel says. He flicks ash out the window and the wind blows some of it back onto his cargo pants. He brushes it off, musing out loud as he pulls a loose thread from a fraying slit across one knee. “How do you know what you see is real?” 

___“Been doing it too long to turn back now,” Dean says, only half joking. “Besides, I got my brother and dad. They do the same thing. See the same stuff.”_ _ _

___“Mental illness is genetic,” Castiel says. His head is turned towards the window so Dean can’t tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not._ _ _

___“Well,” Dean says._ _ _

___They drive back towards the main heart of the city in silence._ _ _

___As Castiel never did answer his question about food Dean pulls into a 24-hour McDonald’s._ _ _

___“Gross,” Castiel says as Dean orders a number five._ _ _

___“What do you want, then?” Dean says. He fishes some change out of his car cup holder and hands it to the cashier._ _ _

___Castiel doesn’t answer and Dean sighs. Thanking the next attendant for his meal, he pulls out of the parking lot and heads back onto the main road for his motel. The smell of day-old frying oil fills the interior. “Want some?” He offers the bag to Castiel, who wrinkles his nose as artfully as Helena Rubinstein at a pig auction in Somerset, Ohio._ _ _

___“No thank you,” he says._ _ _

___Dean sighs. “You have to eat something, man.”_ _ _

___“Not that.”_ _ _

___Dean rolls his eyes and without a hint of remorse unwraps his McDouble and starts eating it. After wiping his fingers clean with a napkin while idling at a stop sign, he fishes out his wallet and takes several bills from it. Thrusting them under Castiel’s nose, he says, “Here. If you want something later.”_ _ _

___Castiel takes the money and it disappears into his coat. “Is this for the questions too?”_ _ _

___“No, I still have those.”_ _ _

___“Take me back to where you’re staying and you can have me all night,” Castiel says._ _ _

___Dean ignores the unmistakeable innuendo. Seeing as how that was his plan all along, he simply flicks on his turn signal at the nearest light and heads towards the nearest Motel 8._ _ _

___A part of his mind keeps looping the question _what are you doing?_ over and over again and the other part is kind of happy to have someone to talk to who has seen the same things he has. He hopes Castiel isn’t crazy or a liar. After all the strikeouts he’s had lately Dean isn’t sure he can take another hit without some recovery time. _ _ _

___He’s not like his dad, though he tries to be. He’s weak in this way, always wanting to be around people. Usually he can get away with it, with Sam there. But now Sam isn’t there and it’s harder to find people who can put up with Dean. His dad likes being alone._ _ _

___When he looks at the passenger side again Castiel is already watching him and once again Dean is struck by Castiel’s attractiveness. He can’t tell if Castiel even likes men. His voice has lost all trace of adolescence and is surprisingly deep; it has a soothing effect on Dean’s grated nerves and Dean suddenly wants to hear Castiel talk, and to keep talking, so that Dean doesn’t have to do any thinking anymore._ _ _

___Dean pulls into the parking light and turns the key, killing the engine. There’s snow on the ground and everything is muffled and Dean isn’t afraid of anything in the wintertime. Too many tracks, you can see where everyone has been and where they are going._ _ _

___“Come on,” Dean says._ _ _

___Castiel follows him a step behind. There’s a smell of mustiness and decay when Dean opens the door, and little wonder when the shag carpeting is probably original 1972 vintage. Castiel takes in the room at a glance: Dean’s duffel on the end of the bed, his .45 on the bedstand, a Bowie handle sticking out of Dean’s second pair of boots tucked neatly by the door. He doesn’t react to any of this. The kid’s got the face of a poker player’s dreams._ _ _

___“Make yourself at home,” Dean says._ _ _

___“Me casa,” Castiel says and seems to take it as a sincere command as he tosses his coat onto a chair and flops onto the second empty bed. He lays on his back and throws his arms over his eyes. The position stretches his Henley over his stomach and Dean can see the letters of the brand American Eagle just above the line of his jeans waistband. Small details that stick in Dean’s head with a meaning he doesn’t want to understand. The sharp jut of his hipbones, his youth._ _ _

___His body is such an invitation it’s hard not to miss and for a moment Dean imagines how easy it would be to walk across the room and crawl onto the bed and crawl over Castiel, lowering himself down to fit neatly between Castiel’s legs. And easy it would be, Dean knows this. A simple, simple exchange. He’s paying already, might as well add a little more to his tab. Would Castiel even say anything if Dean modified their original agreement? Probably not._ _ _

___He probably never assumed Dean was honest about it, anyway._ _ _

___“Hey,” Dean says, softer than he intended, but Castiel looks as though he is truly falling asleep or perhaps Dean wants him to, because he’s still just a kid and he looks exhausted._ _ _

___But Castiel lowers his arm and sits up and looks at Dean with a silent air of expectation and the circles under his eyes will just have to stay there. His hair is pleasantly disarrayed like he’s been running his fingers through it all day and maybe that’s exactly what he’s been doing because the kid’s probably got a lot on his mind._ _ _

___Dean sits on the opposite bed and mirrors Castiel’s position, his hands on his knees. “You know there’s been a bunch of killings happening lately, right?”_ _ _

___Castiel’s heavy-lidded eyes don’t change from their serene indifference one iota except to blink. “Sure,” he says. “I hear stuff.”_ _ _

___“You saw that body before it was carted away by the medics,” Dean says._ _ _

___Castiel moves his hands from his knees to lace them together and Dean wonders if that subtle shift in movement means anything. “Yeah,” Castiel says, frowning slightly, and his head tips down almost like a dog’s, like he can hear something Dean can’t. “But I was - I wasn’t there. I mean -” he snaps his head back up, suddenly alert, “I was there, but I wasn’t. I don’t, ah, I don’t always pay attention to stuff when I’m with - with guys.” He ends this abrupt preamble as quickly as he started it and looks at Dean with a worried little frown. “Sorry?”_ _ _

___He makes it sound like a question and Dean doesn’t know if he’s asking forgiveness or something else. “It’s okay,” Dean says. But he’s persistent. “Just tell me what you remember.”_ _ _

___“I remember…” Castiel’s large blue eyes drift to the ceiling in a familiar habit of recollection Dean has seen in hundreds of witnesses. “It was cold, like tonight. And it was snowing and I was looking up at the sky and the guy gave me Ambien or something so I was feeling pretty good. He kept saying he wanted to do stuff to me so after a while I said okay since he was paying either way, but I don’t usually do that.”_ _ _

___Dean isn’t sure he means he doesn’t usually let other men do that _to_ him or he doesn’t do that in general, but it’s funny that this is a story about witnessing a murder and this is what Castiel chooses to focus on. Every time Dean starts to think _hey, this kid’s all right_ he’s promptly corrected on the matter. He has a feeling Castiel’s impreciseness has less to do with his faulty memory and more a Puritan sense of respect for Dean’s ignorance of things he has no experience with whatsoever. _ _ _

___“So then what happened?” Dean says._ _ _

___Castiel loses the focus in his eyes of trying to remember and he goes kind of blank, but there is not a single hitch in his voice. “He was going down on me and I think his name was Brian? I kept looking up at the sky because I didn’t want to look at him and we were both drunk, so I don’t know if the thing snuck up on us or if we were both too stupid to hear it, but the next thing I remember is, um, Brian screaming. He got yanked away from me and I’m looking up still and he’s being dragged up the wall and then it’s like his heart explodes or something and he’s bleeding everywhere. Then I guess he dies,” Castiel finishes with an alarming tone of anticlimax. His eyes fall back down to Dean, large, passionless blue._ _ _

___“The blood got on my face,” he says, as if this is somehow a factor Dean should have controlled._ _ _

___“Did you see what did it?” Dean says. “Who was dragging him up the wall?”_ _ _

___Castiel gives him one of his colorless smiles. “You say _who_. That’s funny. You already know what it is that did this, you just want to see if I know.” _ _ _

___There’s a touch of paranoia to the statement and Dean has the sense that someone, somewhere has done this sort of thing to Castiel before. “I’m not trying to trick you,” Dean says. “I think we can help each other. You said it had black eyes but now you say you didn’t see anything drag Brian up the wall.”_ _ _

___“Because nothing did,” Castiel says. “I see black-eyed people all the time. I didn’t know they could disappear.”_ _ _

___“They can,” Dean says, but that’s not the remarkable thing. It’s that Castiel sees demons “all the time” and is still alive to tell the tale._ _ _

___“Do me a favor,” Dean says. “Make the sign of the cross.”_ _ _

___Castiel stares at him for a second and then crosses himself, saying in perfect choirboy Latin, “ _In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti._ Amen.” He gives Dean a disappointed, world-weary look that Dean is beginning to recognize as Castiel’s default expression. “That doesn’t always work, you know.” _ _ _

___“Are you saying you know what works?”_ _ _

___“No.” Castiel looks at him with deep pity. “I’m just saying that doesn’t. I see them in churches too.”_ _ _

___The words seem to trigger a stronger line of thought and he says, “I see them everywhere. I see them at the stores, at the park, I see them when they put me down in dryout and it doesn’t matter how much I drink or whatever pills they make me take, they’re there.”_ _ _

___Dean leans forward and starts chewing on the hard skin near his thumbnail, his mind racing. “Holy shit,” he says._ _ _

___The words snap Castiel back to reality. “Can you buy me beer?”_ _ _

___“You’re seventeen,” Dean says._ _ _

___“You said you’d get me anything.”_ _ _

___Dean sighs. “I did say that.”_ _ _

___He glances at his watch. “There’s a gas station a block away. What do you want?”_ _ _

___“Anything. I just want to drink.”_ _ _

___Dean knows that this abrupt change in priorities for Castiel is partly his fault. Talking about the murder would probably make Dean head for the nearest bar, too._ _ _

___“Okay,” Dean says. “Come with me so I can lock the room.”_ _ _

___“I won’t steal,” Castiel says._ _ _

___“I know,” Dean says. “But you understand I can’t leave you here.”_ _ _

___Castiel stands up and slips his coat back on without further protest. “Demons,” Dean hears him say under his breath as Dean opens the door, before it is lost to the wind. “Is that what they are?”_ _ _

___“I think so, yeah,” Dean says. “You can see them.”_ _ _

___“Can you?”_ _ _

___Dean flips his jacket collar up, the warmth of the room immediately sucked away. Michigan is definitely not for him. “No,” Dean says. “No one can. At least, I thought no one could.” He looks at Castiel. “You have special eyes.”_ _ _

___“I got all kinds of special,” Castiel says, not looking at Dean. His tone is a thick, muted hatred with no target. He’s utterly immune to Dean’s astonishment. “I want Budweiser.”_ _ _

___“I’ll see what I can do.”_ _ _

___Dean closes the door and locks it. This is the acting gig of his life. He’s just met a hooker with magical demon-detecting powers and now he’s walking a block in ten degree weather for shitty beer, as if everything is cool. If he ever stops and considers his life he might think all this was a bit odd. But all he can think is how lucky he is to have met Castiel and if he was a praying man he’d thank God for snowstorms and poor boys without a lighter._ _ _


End file.
